


That Doth Fade

by still_lycoris



Category: X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Dark Phoenix Spoilers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 21:31:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19118092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: Spoilers for Dark Phoenix. Hank and Charles finally talk, afterwards





	That Doth Fade

**Author's Note:**

> Because all the tags would be potential spoilers, I am including them here for a week or two rather than one the fic itself. So **Referenced Character Death, Break Up, Bittersweet**

Hank lingers outside the door for a long time before finally making himself push it open.

Charles doesn’t look at him. He hasn’t looked at Hank properly since the train. He probably knows that Hank has been standing outside for the last half hour and has been politely ignoring it – or maybe hoping Hank would go away. It’s hard to tell. They’ve been being terribly polite to each other since the train too. Charles hasn’t mentioned him leaving without a word to go to Erik, hasn’t mentioned Hank’s role in making everything worse, hasn’t mentioned any of it. Hank isn’t sure if that’s because Charles is still angry or if it’s because he thinks there’s nothing more to actually be said. He’s inclined to believe the second. What’s the point of words now?

The room is a mess; all piles of clothes and books and open boxes everywhere, the chaotic sort of packing that Hank hates. Charles has always teased him about his tendency to write lists, his making sure he knows where everything is in every single case.

“Some are for storage,” Charles says, still using that bright, cheerful voice that he’s been using with Hank since everything happened and still not looking at him. “They can go in the basement. Don’t worry, everything is well labelled if I need it.”

Hank isn’t sure what to say. He makes a non-committal noise instead of words. Charles is bending over a suitcase now, rearranging the contents a little, even though it actually looks fairly neatly packed. There’s a rectangle on the top that’s been carefully wrapped up and Hank is sure that it’s a photograph of Raven.

“Obviously, anything that I leave behind, you can use, if you need to,” Charles says. “For anything, don’t worry about it, you know what’s mine is yours – ”

He stops talking. The silence stretches out horribly between them, the words melting away into it. Hank thinks that it’s the kind of silence that he’d have once filled with babbling, just to make it go away. He doesn’t do that now. He just stands and he waits and he watches Charles fiddle with his suitcase, as though anything in it is really important, even that one photograph.

“I don’t want it to be this way,” Charles says, his voice very quiet.

“What way?” Hank says. His voice is a growl and he tries to temper it. It’s hard sometimes when he’s in this form. He can hide even less. But then, he could never hide anything from Charles, could he?

“ _This_ way. This ... can’t we say goodbye like adults? Can’t we part as friends?”

“We _are_ parting as friends, aren’t we? I’m not yelling. You’re not yelling. We’re parting as friends.”

As friends. He still remembers that first time he ever set eyes on Charles, on Charles’s beautiful face (not that Hank could admit that then, he was still denying the idea that he could ever find a man beautiful.) Charles’s big smile, his handshake, his casually revealing Hank’s greatest secret, like it was a nothing. His excitement when he saw what Hank could do and Hank realising that Charles and Raven could accept him for what he was. All the hope and excitement of those first weeks – and then everything that came after. The hurt, the betrayal, the slow sink into apathy for both of them. And then the better years, the _good_ years where they were both happy and the school was happy and the world was better – 

“We’re not parting as friends,” Charles says. “We’re parting as strangers and I know I deserve it, I do, but ... but must we? Can’t it be ... be more?”

More. They’ve been more to each other since the late sixties. The first time Charles looped his arms around Hank’s neck and asked him if he’d take him to bed before giving him a clumsy kiss. The first time they’d actually _gone_ to bed and Hank had transformed into his Beast self, expected Charles to be disgusted but Charles had simply held onto him tighter, whispered “No, that’s all right.” and Hank hadn’t believed him but it had been so good to think it. The times when they’d sat together late at night, Charles lazily stroking Hank’s fur. When they’d just sat together and Hank had never been able to imagine feeling that close to anybody else ...

Except perhaps Raven.

There are things you can’t take back. You can be sorry for them. You even can forgive them, given time. But you can’t take them back and they change everything, even if you don’t want them to. You can’t make it right. 

“I’m so sorry,” Charles says again. “I’m so sorry.”

“Will you miss me?”

It’s not the question he expected to hear himself ask. It’s not even the question he feels like he should ask. But it’s what comes out and finally, _finally_ , Charles looks at him and his eyes are filled with pain.

“With all my heart,” he says and then Hank’s on the bed and he’s got his arms around Charles and Charles is clinging to him and Hank’s not crying, he’s not but he can only just breathe and he can hear Charles making tiny noises and they just hold on and hold on and hold on and they can’t hold on forever and Hank doesn’t even want to but right now, he needs this and it’s something, it’s _something_.

They don’t make any promises to each other. Charles doesn’t offer to come back, Hank doesn’t offer to wait. They don’t offer any more apologies or forgiveness for what is done. They hug each other for a long, silent time until at least, they pull apart and Charles strokes Hank’s face and Hank strokes Charles’s and then they separate.

What happened, happened. Neither of them can take it back and they both know it. Neither of them will stop feeling it; the hurt and betrayal and pain.

But they won’t stop feeling what came before, either.

 _Love doesn’t have to die. It sometimes just has to change_.

Charles’s voice is a whisper in his mind. It’s the first time he’s spoken in there since all of this.

Hank finds that it’s all right, now.


End file.
